The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning
Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Taking & making images.
Mary had been thinking of blocking the narrow path between the neighbor’s fence and her garden, so I set up the trail camera to see what went on out there when we weren’t around.
The Midnight Possum must have another appointment:
Raccoons definitely use the path as a highway:
And, as if we didn’t have enough deer already:
My recommendation: don’t block the path, because we are badly outnumbered!
I put the camera in the front yard to monitor a new groundhog hole, then mowed the lawn. Although smoke drifting in from the Canadian fires has posed a problem, the air quality wasn’t this bad:
It turns out the camera’s case seal isn’t quite up to the task:
The lip around the front half of the case presses against a rubber gasket around the rear half, which means the water on the electronics chassis is inside the camera case:
Fortunately, the water condensed on the inside of the glass lens protector, rather than on the camera itself:
I let the whole thing dry out on the bench for a few days and all seems right again.
The leak does make me think leaving it out in the rain is a Bad Idea™, which isn’t the sort of thought one should have about a trail camera.
Diurnal pumping can explain many electronic failures. For the record, the monitoring station on the Walkway Over the Hudson vanished a while ago, probably due to rampant electronic corrosion.
The only reason we haven’t seen a standing raccoon is because we’re not awake when it happens:
The glowing dot over on the far right is a third raccoon!
They are athletic critters:
Mary puts garden clippings in the wheelbarrow before hauling them over the hill to our organic dumping ground. Something must smell pretty good in there:
The wire mesh over the new plantings in the garden seems to be holding them at bay, but it must come off before it snares the growing plants. We hope whatever is in the fertilizer will have worn off by then!
Using Bash arrays is an exercise in masochism, but I got to recycle most of the oddities from the previous script, so it wasn’t a dead loss.
The cameras use individually unique / screwy / different filesystem layouts, so the script must have individual code to both copy the file and decapitalize the file extensions. This prevents using a single tidy function, although laying out the code in case statements keyed by the camera name helps identify what’s going on.
My previous approach identified the MicroSD cards by their UUIDs, which worked perfectly right up until the camera reformats the card while recovering from a filesystem crash and installs a randomly generated UUID. Because there’s no practical way to modify an existing UUID on a VFAT drive, I’m switching to the volume label as needed:
#-- action cameras and USB video storage
UUID=B40C6DD40C6D9262 /mnt/video ntfs user,noauto,uid=ed 0 0
UUID=B257-AE02 /mnt/Fly6 vfat user,noauto,uid=ed 0 0
#UUID=0000-0001 /mnt/M20 vfat user,noauto,uid=ed 0 0
UUID=3339-3338 /mnt/M20 vfat user,noauto,uid=ed 0 0
LABEL=AS30V /mnt/AS30V exfat user,noauto,uid=ed 0 0
LABEL=C100-0001 /mnt/C100_1 vfat user,noauto,uid=ed 0 0
LABEL=C100-0002 /mnt/C100_2 vfat user,noauto,uid=ed 0 0
UUID=0050-0001 /mnt/M50 vfat user,noauto,uid=ed 0 0
In particular, note the two UUIDs for the M20 camera: there’s a crash and reformat in between those two lines. The two C100 cameras started out with labels because the M20 taught me the error of my ways.
The script simply iterates through a list array of the cameras and tries to mount the corresponding MicroSD card for each one: the mount points are cleverly chosen to match the camera names in the array. Should the mount succeeds, an asynchronous rsync then slurps the files onto the bulk video drive.
With all the rsync operations running, the script waits for all of them to complete before continuing. I don’t see much point in trying to identify which rsync just finished and fix up its files while the others continue to run, so the script simply stalls in a loop until everything is finished.
All in all, the script scratches my itch and, if naught else, can serve as a Bad Example™ of how to get the job done.
A picture to keep WordPress from reminding me that readers respond positively to illustrated posts:
Ride on!
The Bash script as a GitHub Gist:
| #!/bin/bash | |
| # This uses too many bashisms for dash | |
| source /etc/os-release | |
| echo 'Running on' $PRETTY_NAME | |
| if [[ "$PRETTY_NAME" == *Manjaro* ]] ; then | |
| ren='perl-rename' | |
| dm='sudo dmesg' | |
| elif [[ "$PRETTY_NAME" == *Ubuntu* ]] ; then | |
| ren='rename' | |
| dm='dmesg' | |
| else | |
| echo 'New distro to me:' $PRETTY_NAME | |
| echo ' … which rename command is valid?' | |
| exit | |
| fi | |
| echo Check for good SD card spin-up | |
| $dm | tail -50 | |
| echo … Ctrl-C to bail out and fix / Enter to proceed | |
| read junk | |
| thisdate=$(date –rfc-3339=date) | |
| echo Date: $thisdate | |
| # MicroSD / readers / USB drive defined in fstab | |
| # … with UUID or PARTID as appropriate | |
| echo Mounting bulk video drive | |
| sudo mount /mnt/video | |
| if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then | |
| echo '** Cannot mount video storage drive' | |
| exit | |
| fi | |
| # Show starting space available | |
| df -h /mnt/video | |
| # list the cameras | |
| declare -a cams=( AS30V Fly6 M20 M50 C100_1 C100_2 ) | |
| declare -A targets=( \ | |
| [AS30V]=/mnt/video/AS30V/$thisdate \ | |
| [Fly6]=/mnt/video/Fly6/DCIM \ | |
| [M20]=/mnt/video/M20/$thisdate \ | |
| [M50]=/mnt/video/M50/$thisdate \ | |
| [C100_1]=/mnt/video/C100_1/$thisdate \ | |
| [C100_2]=/mnt/video/C100_2/$thisdate \ | |
| ) | |
| declare -A PIDs | |
| declare -A Copied | |
| echo Iterating through cameras: ${cams[*]} | |
| Running=0 | |
| for cam in ${cams[*]} ; do | |
| printf "\nProcessing: $cam\n" | |
| mpt="/mnt/$cam" | |
| target=${targets[$cam]} | |
| sudo mount $mpt | |
| if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then | |
| echo " Start $cam transfer from $mpt" | |
| echo " Make target directory: $target" | |
| mkdir $target | |
| case $cam in | |
| ( AS30V ) | |
| rsync -ahu –progress –exclude "*THM" $mpt/MP_ROOT/100ANV01/ $target & | |
| ;; | |
| ( Fly6 ) | |
| rsync -ahu –progress $mpt /mnt/video & | |
| ;; | |
| ( M20 ) | |
| n=$( ls $mpt/DCIM/Photo/* 2> /dev/null | wc -l ) | |
| if [ $n -gt 0 ] ; then | |
| echo " copy M20 photos first" | |
| rsync -ahu –progress $mpt/DCIM/Photo/ $target | |
| fi | |
| echo " cmd: rsync -ahu –progress $mpt/DCIM/Movie/ $target" | |
| rsync -ahu –progress $mpt/DCIM/Movie/ $target & | |
| ;; | |
| ( M50 ) | |
| n=$( ls $mpt/DCIM/PHOTO/* 2> /dev/null | wc -l ) | |
| if [ $n -gt 0 ] ; then | |
| echo " copy M50 photos first" | |
| rsync -ahu –progress $mpt/DCIM/PHOTO/ $target | |
| fi | |
| rsync -ahu –progress $mpt/DCIM/MOVIE/ $target & | |
| ;; | |
| ( C100_1 | C100_2 ) | |
| n=$( ls $mpt/DCIM/Photo/* 2> /dev/null | wc -l ) | |
| if [ $n -gt 0 ] ; then | |
| echo " copy $cam photos first" | |
| rsync -ahu –progress $mpt/DCIM/Photo/ $target | |
| fi | |
| rsync -ahu –progress $mpt/DCIM/Movie/ $target & | |
| ;; | |
| ( * ) | |
| printf "\n**** Did not find $cam in list!\n" | |
| ;; | |
| esac | |
| PIDs[$cam]=$! | |
| echo " PID for $cam: " "${PIDs[$cam]}" | |
| Copied[$cam]=1 | |
| (( Running++ )) | |
| else | |
| echo " skipping $cam" | |
| Copied[$cam]=0 | |
| fi | |
| done | |
| printf "\n—– Waiting for all rsync terminations\n" | |
| echo PIDs: "${PIDs[*]}" | |
| if [ $Running -eq 0 ] ; then | |
| echo No rsyncs started, force error | |
| rcsum=9999 | |
| else | |
| rcsum=0 | |
| while [ $Running -gt 0 ] ; do | |
| echo " waiting: $Running" | |
| wait -n -p PID | |
| rc=$? | |
| rcsum=$(( rcsum+$rc )) | |
| echo RC for $PID: $rc | |
| (( Running– )) | |
| done | |
| echo All rsyncs finished | |
| fi | |
| if [ $rcsum -eq 0 ] ; then | |
| echo '—– Final cleanups' | |
| for cam in ${cams[*]} ; do | |
| if [ "${Copied[$cam]}" -eq 1 ] ; then | |
| echo Cleanup for: $cam | |
| mpt=/mnt/$cam | |
| target=${targets[$cam]} | |
| echo Target dir: $target | |
| case $cam in | |
| ( Fly6 ) | |
| find $target -name \*AVI -print0 | xargs -0 $ren -v -f 's/AVI/avi/' | |
| rm -rf $mpt/DCIM/* | |
| ;; | |
| ( AS30V ) | |
| find $target -name \*MP4 -print0 | xargs -0 $ren -v -f 's/MP4/mp4/' | |
| rm $mpt/MP_ROOT/100ANV01/* | |
| ;; | |
| ( M50 ) | |
| find $target -name \*MP4 -print0 | xargs -0 $ren -v -f 's/MP4/mp4/' | |
| rm $mpt/DCIM/MOVIE/* | |
| n=$( ls $mpt/DCIM/PHOTO/* 2> /dev/null | wc -l ) | |
| if [ $n -gt 0 ] ; then | |
| echo placeholder $cam | |
| rm $mpt/DCIM/PHOTO/* | |
| fi | |
| ;; | |
| ( * ) | |
| find $target -name \*MP4 -print0 | xargs -0 $ren -v -f 's/MP4/mp4/' | |
| find $target -name \*JPG -print0 | xargs -0 $ren -v -f 's/JPG/jpg/' | |
| rm $mpt/DCIM/Movie/* | |
| n=$( ls $mpt/DCIM/Photo/* 2> /dev/null | wc -l ) | |
| if [ $n -gt 0 ] ; then | |
| echo placeholder $cam | |
| rm $mpt/DCIM/Photo/* | |
| fi | |
| ;; | |
| esac | |
| sudo umount $mpt | |
| else | |
| echo No cleanup for: $cam | |
| fi | |
| done | |
| echo '—– Space remaining on video drive' | |
| df -h /mnt/video | |
| sudo umount /mnt/video | |
| date | |
| echo Done! | |
| else | |
| echo Whoopsie! Total RC: $rcsum | |
| fi |
The fox caught what looks like a small groundhog for supper:
The tom turkeys have been forming and re-forming their groups:
The gray cat may have spotted breakfast out there in the yard:
We haven’t seen a raccoon stand up like this before, so something must be very interesting out there:
Off to its far right, Mary had fertilized a new pepper planting, which evidently smelled good enough to motivate vigorous digging. None of the plants sustained damage, despite being tossed around, but dexterous paws were surely involved!
The trail camera caught a chipmunk with cheek pouches stuffed full of maple seeds:
The critter evidently heard something, as it froze in position for some seconds, then launched toward its burrow somewhere on the left:
Whatever it heard must have been terrifying:
It covered 2 m across the camera field in 1/2 s (15 frames at 30 f/s) for an average speed of 4 m/s = 9 mph from launch.
A slide show for your edification:
We know this chipmunk as “Stumpy”, because of its half-length tail, and think it has considerable motivation for outstanding speed.
Tail high, little one!
Eight years of progress in the action camera world gets you from a rather expensive Cycliq Fly6:
To an SJCAM C100+ camera costing the better part of fifty bucks on closeout:
The camera is mounted on the side of the seat frame on Mary’s Tour Easy:
The slightly tilted picture comes from the frame rail’s incline. My C100+ camera mounts on the horizontal part of the rail:
As expected, the internal battery does not last for our usual hour-long rides, so the cameras now operate in “car mode”: recording starts when we plug in the USB battery pack and stops shortly after unplugging.
I started with the waterproof case on my bike:
Which (obviously) does not allow for an external battery, so they’re now in the “frame” mount. The hatch covering the MicroSD card and USB Micro-B connector (and a Reset button!) is on the bottom of the camera, but (fortunately) the whole affair mounts up-side-down and the settings include an image flip mode.
Putting the camera on the side required changing the mount angle from -20° to +35°:
The ergonomics / user interface of this whole setup is terrible:
Extracting the video files from the camera through the app is an exercise in frustration. Having already figured out how to do this for the other cameras in the fleet, it’s easier to fumble with the MicroSD card.
I devoutly hope we never really need any of the videos.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 